


Film night is for...Sleeping?

by Darkhorse



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: 5 Times, Background Relationship, Cuddles, F/M, Film night, Gen, M/M, Movie Night, Sickfic, same-sex relationship, semi, sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-07 06:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkhorse/pseuds/Darkhorse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a Kinkmeme prompt 'The five times Javert fell asleep during movie night and Valjean had to carry him to bed, and the one time he actually stayed awake for the whole film.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cinderella

Cosette had never forgiven him for falling asleep during Cinderella. Jean had bought her the video for her birthday and after dinner they'd settled down to watch it. To be fair the lounge was warm, he was practically knackered, having just come off the night-shifts but been denied his mid-afternoon kip due to a desire to get back on normal time. He slipped down, stretching to hook his feet over the armrest and using Jean's lap as a pillow, relaxing even more as he felt fingers running through his hair, untying the ribbon that held in neatly back and combing it out. He'd just rest for five minutes, wake up for the ball-scenes...

He half woke up to find Valjean tucking him into bed as he would Cosette, with the same fatherly smile.  
“She won't let you forget this, you know”  
He was too sleepy to really understand, tugging the other man towards the empty side of the double bed. Valjean slipped in and pressed a kiss to his forehead, a gentle offering of love.  
“And I shall remember not to stroke your hair in future” But he was grateful that his partner immediately broke the rule, smoothing it until he dozed off again  
Only in the morning did he fathom out that he must have been carried upstairs, because he certainly didn't walk in his sleep.


	2. Henry V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry V by Kenneth Brannagh

Jean pushed the video into the player and stood up, ambling over to his side of the three seater. Javert joined him after a moment, mug of coffee in his hand.  
“What are we watching?”  
“The new Henry V” He sensed a glare being aimed at him and pointedly didn't hold up his hands “You like Shakespeare.”  
Javert humphed “I have read some, but I find the anti-french histories rather annoying.” And anyway, don't you always complain the film adaptation will take liberties?”  
Jean did not dignify that with an answer.

About an hour in, just past Harfleur, he looked over to see Javert's head tilted sideways, eyes shut. He might have known. With a sigh, as the French horses lined the ridge, he lent over and poked his partner awake.  
“What?”It was only mildly grumpy, for once.  
This,” he gestured towards the screen “is one of the finest pieces of writing and acting, and you shall not sleep through it.”  
He was gratified when his partner obeyed, even staying awake through the entire muddy battle and the funeral march. Two words into the Bishop's speech however he was gone again.  
Jean sighed, and contented himself by half-humming, half singing along to Non Nobis Domine.

Javert was still asleep. Ala Henry and Falstaff's boy Valjean swung the taller man over his shoulder in something like a fire-man's lift. Not exactly comfortable for Javert, but a small historian part of him decided the other man deserved it.


	3. Fantasia

“You should have stayed in bed”  
Javert knew that much, had discovered it when he'd got to the bedroom door and didn't want to move another millimeter, limbs shaking and crying at him in pain. Given that by then he was cold and already closer to the stairs than to his bed he'd elected to keep creeping forwards, and had made it, albeit very, very, very slowly, all the way down the stairs before his body completely gave out and refused to be tricked into another muscle movement. Now, exhausted and shaking with it, he managed to look up at Valjean. The older man kindly crouched down to his level,  
“Well now that you've made it all the way down here, I can hardly send you back up...” there was a gentle smile that he managed to return “Come on”

It took far too much energy just to get into the lounge, even with Jean doing most of the weight-bearing, and he collapsed onto the three-seater with something that should have been a moan, but settled out for a sneeze.He hurt, every single inch of muscle complaining that it would like paracetamol, NOW. Never mind he couldn't take any for an hour...

A thick blanket dropped down over him, followed by a duvet, then a pillow was tucked up by his head, shielding it from the uncomfortable lump that was the armrest. The covers were wonderful, given that his internal thermostat seemed to have broken; right down to his bone marrow and quite possibly permanently.  
“I hate being ill”  
Jean came back into his eyesight, tucking the covers tighter on his shoulders “That's because you're always healthy, and always active. The inability to do anything rubs as much as the ignominy of feeling wretched...”  
A hand brushed his forehead, a non-transparent attempt to check his temperature. Javert couldn't find it in himself to care that he was being babied as he fought off another shivering fit, only to fight the covers when he was too hot moments later. Damn flu! All he'd wanted to do for the last five days was curl up and die, and now, after feeling livelier this morning and thinking the worst was over, he was back to square one. Gratefully he persuaded a hot-water-bottle that it would like to join him under the covers, drawing it childishly close as his body swayed from one wobbly extreme of temperature to the other.  
“Do you want me to put the TV on?”  
He shook his head as much as he dared “No... just a film. Something that I don't need to concentrate to watch.”  
A gentle hand on his shoulder in solidarity, then Jean knelt down to deal with the requested film, leaving him the remote.

A mouse in a wizard's hat. He felt his lips curl slightly, but into a true smile. It was simple, inane and childish, but it was something for his eyes and ears, without requiring anything from his cotton-wooled brain

Finishing the last crumbs of his lunch and surreptitiously watching the film, Valjean noticed that Javert was fast asleep, the remote dangling from one hand as his head tried to hide bird-like under the covers. Quietly he crossed the room, moving the blanket ever so slightly to rest the back of his hand on the other man's forehead. Then, carefully cocooning Javert in the blankets he lifted him up off the settee, cradling him as he used to Cosette, and carried him slowly back up the stairs to the only place he was fit to be.


	4. Ivanhoe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The one film in this set that the author has not seen

The fourth incident he really hadn't intended to happen. The film had been moved from downstairs to up in their bedroom, to accommodate the fact that Javert's newly mending leg, (curse stupid criminals with too sharp knives) did not really like the thought of climbing stairs.

It was Marius who brought the film, the old adaptation of Ivanhoe. Even if the colours were slightly over bright and movement sped up it was a good film. But almost as soon as too many characters were introduced Javert, who had managed to shift to a chair for the sake of appearances, found his brain slowing. The harder he thought and tried to pay attention to what was going on, the sleepier he seemed to become. But he persisted.

Marius was glaring indignantly at Javert, who was slumped in his seat, head tilted against the back of the chair and eyes closed  
“I thought he'd enjoy it”  
Valjean rescued the situation before the boy's feelings were hurt “He was enjoying it, Marius, I could see that...But I'd forgotten it took more than a week for anaesthetic to clear out of a person's system. I think Javert was concentrating so deeply he practically sent himself to sleep without meaning to.”  
He watched the young man, hoping he would understand and not react further. Thankfully Cosette put a hand on her boyfriend's arm, clearly whispering that making a fuss over it wouldn’t help. Marius nodded instead and allowed Cosette to lead him downstairs, probably in search if a final mug of hot chocolate.

Valjean took the chance of their absence to lift Javert from the chair back to bed. The officer was quite capable of crutch hopping, it was how he'd got there in the first place, but Valjean had also seen how pale his face was, the dark bags under those eyes.

He tucked him in gently, careful not to brush the healing wound, and splodged some lavender oil on the pillow. Old wives tale, some might say, but it had definitely helped Javert to sleep, and was rather more innocuous than any of those sleeping pills the doctor had prescribed... Javert needed a healing sleep, not sedation.  
“Jean?” It was a blurred mumble, so child-like and trusting.  
He covered the searching hand with his own “Sleep, Stefan...Sleep”  
Javert relaxed, drifting off again easily into the warm bed.


	5. The Artist

It was boring. Even he, one of the most charitable viewers, had lost enthusiasm. The key part of the film was the fact that it was silent, in the old style, and that was all very well. But it wore off after a while, especially, when apparently for clichés they instituted a double jeopardy ending, leaping from one nasty situation to another. Valjean sighed and automatically glanced over at the other armchair, having vacated their usual three-seater for Cosette, Eponine and Marius. Sure enough, Javert was fast asleep, and it looked like he'd been that way for quite a while. It was only as he had suspected, but still a bitter surprise, he'd through his partner might make an effort as they had guests around. But it was not to be.  
\------------

He felt Jean looming over him  
“Now, shall I carry this impolite officer to bed, or must he sleep down here?”  
“If you carry me, I'll be good next time I come off nights and warm my feet up before getting into bed." Javert, knew he might be on winning ground, as he also knew just how much Valjean hated cold feet pressed to his leg in the unforgivably early morning hours.  
But there was silence, except for the trio clattering in the kitchen. He wanted to crack open his eyes slightly and see Jean's face, but didn't dare. His answer came when he was hauled out of the chair and braced on his partner's back. Remaining as light and unburdensome as he could he found himself being carried up the stairs, only to be deposited with a rough head duck onto the bed.  
Dizzy and slightly dazed he looked up at Jean, trying to glare accusingly “What was that for?”  
Jean smiled, or was it smirked? “You fell asleep without any excuse, then coerce me into carrying you to bed, but I didn't say I'd put you down gently  
Javert kicked out at him “You've been spending too long with Pontmercy, to act like that.”  
Jean raised an eyebrow “Perhaps you'd do to spend some more time with Cosette then, she might sugar you up.”  
“Won't stop me falling asleep in front of uninteresting films though”  
He found himself grabbed in a rough tussle-hug “And I wouldn't have you change that for the world...”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone doesn't recognise the films... well, grrrr to you.

The fire was cracking in its grate, he had a mug of hot chocolate cradled in his hands and he was nestled quite unashamedly next to the man he loved.  
“Nostalgia?”  
He nodded, and pressed the play button on the remote  
African chanting carried from the speakers as a sun rose above a plain, so familiar even though they hadn't watched it for years on end.  
He had to chuckle at Jean joining in with the songs, only to be swatted lightly on his outside shoulder.

Even watching the sequel immediately after the original the cocoon of bliss seemed to come to an end all too soon...  
Javert sighed in a resigned fashion, quite enjoying the feeling of Jean's arm across his stomach and chest as he used the older man's lap for a pillow, and thoroughly unwilling to move  
“Fine films” Fine films that were so simple, yet so complex, so sweet, yet so grown up, so moral, yet so fun.  
Jean nodded and Javert watched from an odd angle as his partner rested back on the sofa with one arm tucked behind his head

There was a silence, settled and comfortable rather than awkward, for a while, before Javert spoke again “If we were characters...”  
A hand slipped down to the crown of his head, smoothing and combing his long hair out almost on reflex as the older man thought “I think you'd be Kovu, or maybe Vitani? One of those who changed their paths...”  
“Not Scar?”  
Jean shook his head, smiling an amused smile “Before, perhaps... but not now. Besides” And here Javert could tell that the hair stroking had significance “Kovu had the thicker mane”  
He was given no time to retort, being blocked by Jean's instance that he must be similar to a character too. It didn't take a second to work out the answer  
“You're Simba” he reached up to run his hand over Jean's jaw “You're Simba through and through, right down to when I fell in love with you.” He didn't even have to hum to start the older man singing softly, his eyes far away.  
 _“So many things to tell him,  
But how to make him see,  
The truth about my past... impossible.  
He'd turn away from me.”_

Reaching out to link fingers with his lover, Javert sang the answering verse back to him.  
 _“He's holding back, he's hiding_  
But what, I can't decide  
Why won't he be the man I know he is  
The one I see inside?”   
Jean kissed his forehead briefly as the last note trailed off, then gave him a sharp tap on the side of the leg “Up with you, lazy cat, these mugs need washing.”

It was all the warning he needed. As Jean rose and he felt his body slip he twisted in position, hooking one foot around the other man's and wrapping an arm around Jean so they tumbled onto the carpet in one muddle of body and limbs.  
After a brief few stunned seconds he rolled to uppermost, pointedly holding Jean's shoulders down with a thump “Pinned y'a”  
Jean's looked briefly confused, then his face softened to mock sternness “Horseplay, Javert?”  
He dropped his head to kiss the other man lightly, almost teasingly, on the lips “Say rather lion play.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's the end. To be honest I'd forgotten about this story, but figured I'd better get it all up, it's been done for ages.


End file.
